CHAPTER XXX.
THE THINKING OF ANIMALS.
You saw in the last chapter that the great superiority of man over other animals is in his mind. Let us look, now, at those things in which their minds are like his, and those things in which they differ from it.
What animals think about.
The cat and the snow.
I have already told you some things about the thinking of animals. Some of them think a great deal. They think about what they see, and hear, and feel very much as we do. I once had a cat that was born in the spring, after the snow was all gone. In the beginning of the next winter, the first snow that came was quite deep. It fell in the night. It was, of course, a new sight to my cat. When she came out in the morning, she looked at it with very curious eyes, just as we look at any thing new. I suppose that she thought how clean, and white, and pretty it was. After looking a little while, she poked the snow first with one paw and then with the other several times, to see how it felt. Then she gathered up between her paws as much as she could hold, and threw it up in the air over her head; and then she ran swiftly all around the yard, making the snow fly about like feathers wherever she went. Now, though my cat could not talk, I could see by her actions that her thoughts and feelings were very much such as children have when they play in the snow.
The sport of animals.
Animals are much like children in their sports. We notice this very often in dogs and cats. But the same thing is true of other animals. It is amusing to see porpoises playing with each other in the water. As they throw themselves up out of the water, and dive down again, they chase each other as dogs and cats do. Some birds are very lively in their sports. Insects have their sports also. The ants, industrious as they generally are, have their times for play. They run races; they wrestle; they carry each other on their backs in the same way that boys do; they run one after another, and dodge each other behind stalks of grass, as boys do behind trees and posts; they have scuffles and mock-fights together. Very busy are their minds in their little brains in these sports—as busy as your minds are in your sports.
Sober animals.